What did we donate?

Kiev special school of arts for children with impaired vision
Full time home and school to 120 blind or partially blind children, this good cause was recommended to us by Alina Kisina, Ukrainian photographer living in Edinburgh, and a patron of the school. 

With Alina's help we had found out before the trip what they required: 

Repair work to fire escapes;
A new medical room;
Glasses;
Special stationery;
Medication

After a bit of chat it was decided to donate £5,000 towards these items, plus cash for a slap up meal to make our visit a bit more memorable for the children. Also, in the build up to the trip Tartan Army and friends began to flood Tartankiev with donated clothes, toys, sweets, stationery etc. In the end we were able to arrive at the school with over a dozen kit bags full of good quality donations, plus 120 bags of sweets donated by Kirkaldy Tartan Army.

Of all the practical items that our donation paid for, the medical room will have the biggest long-term benefit. Essentially what is now a run-down cupboard will be transformed into a room where children who feel unwell will be able to head off for a wee bit of TLC and a lie down.

Kiev City Orphanage (Pritulok) Number 5
About as nice as it sounds, this institution came to our attention a couple of weeks before the trip via Vitali Pantus, General Consul at the Ukrainian Embassy in Edinburgh. 

This really is a place that needs some assistance. Stuck out in an estate well out of the centre of Kiev, this place brings to mind all the old Soviet, Eastern Bloc images. The home functions as a rehabilitation centre - homeless children brought off the streets are shaved and scrubbed, their clothes burned, and then they're looked after for 3 months. If they have recovered sufficiently psychologically they are then placed in a permanent orphanage.

Not nice, so we were pleased to have found them and to be able to help them. They wouldn't take a monetary donation - anything they received would have simply been deducted from their already meagre State funding - so instead they compiled a list of what they need.
It includes winter coats, jeans, t-shirts, underwear, sneakers and other basics.

David Giles at the British Embassy was kind enough to volunteer to do the "shopping", so we transferred £5,000 to fund this.

We also went on a bit of a supermarket dash to gift them several trolleys worth of treats, and were able to give them half a dozen or so kit-bags of cloths, sweets and toys.

The only regret was not having more to give them.